Ethnical processes and political events have always left an imprint
on geographical nomenclature. This is most vividly seen in southeastern
Europe, and in the Balkans in particular because compared with the other
regions of the Old World the former have been subjected to frequent and
profound changes.

A study of the emergence and the evolution of local names in this area
shows that not only have they been replaced by other names or had their
image or sound modified, but in certain cases the old toponyms were preserved,
though with a new content, or cropped up in entirely new localities. The
study and elucidation of these phenomena and the causes for their emergence
reveal certain patterns and also help to eliminate the numerous errors
and delusions about the past and present of the Balkans.

It is impossible, within the framework of a single chapter, to examine
comprehensively the complicated question of geographical nomenclature in
all of this part of Europe. It is for this reason that we shall deal only
with the more important regional names in the eastern and central parts
of the Balkans. The differentiation of that area also justifies the restriction
of the subject in relation to it, geographical scope. In Antiquity the
eastern part of the peninsula was inhabited by Thracians and Dacians, and
the western part by Illyrians. Whereas the former fell under the influence
of Hellenism and largely retained its traditions, the latter maintained
closer ties with Rome. This ethnical differentiation in the period preceding
the division of the Old World, as well as the proximity of Constantinople
in cultural and geographical aspects, determined that the area under review
remained in the Empire's eastern part. After settlement in the area by
the Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians, the differentiation was aggravated and
could be traced in the ethnicl and political development of the following
centuries.

Byzantium, being the heir to Rome, took over its administrative division
and its nomenclature. The names of the provinces Thrace, Illyria, Macedonia,
Scythia, Dacia, [1] etc. were established and adopted
by the old inhabitants of the Balkans, since in general terms they corresponded
to the countries settled in by the various groups (ethnicons). These names
of provinces were not only administrative units but became geographical
concepts. Duri their continuous usage in the course of the first six centuries
A.D. the Roman nomenclature of the provinces and dioceses in the Balkans
gained a wide popularity and a definite significance in parts of the Old
World including its western domains. It should be stressed that a precondition
for this was a combination of political and ethnical factors.

Radical changes occurred in the territorial scope and the ethnic composition
of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth and seven centuries (Fig.
1). The Emperor in Constantinople was able keep under his sceptre barely
a third of the territory, he had ruled in earlier centuries. The Arabs
and the Persians conquered considerable parts of his domains in Africa
and Asia, whilst at the same time his rule over Italy and the Balkan Peninsula
was alre very much restricted. The waves of 'barbarian' invasions were
followed
by prolonged and even more devastating raids by the Slavs (Sclavinians)
[2]
during the last decades of the sixth century. The Sclavinians, a south-eastern
Slavic group were also called 'Dacians' or 'Bulgarians', and eventually
provided the basic component of the Bulgarian nationality. [3]

Fig. 1. Ethnic and political changes
in the Balkans towards the end of the seventh century A.D.

Benefitting from the unprotected northern Byzantine frontiers (a result
of warfare waged by the Empire in Asia) the Sclavinians came down from
their initial base in modern Wallachia and Moldavia, mainly along the valleys
of the Rivers Morava and Vardar. They occupied the land to the south and
south-east, to a line running from the estuary of the River Koloubara at
the Danube passing across the ridges of the Roudoka, Stolova and Kopaonik
mountains and the north Albanian Mountain Range, and ending to the north
of the town of Dyrrachion (the Old-Bulgarian Drach and present-day Durresi
in Albania) and the Shkodra Lake. [4] The settlements
were most densely populated in the heart of the peninsula, in the diocese
of Macedonia ( which also embraced Greece).

The new settlers used it as their second base, and from it the spread
eastwards and south-eastwards. Thus, the Slavs came permanently to the
former provinces of Moesia, Dardania, Thrace, Thessaly, Epirus, Central
Greece and the Peloponnesus, reaching as far as the coasts of the Black,
Adriatic and Aegean seas. Separate groups crossed in their vessels (monoxyles)
and landed also on the islands of the Archipelago as well as in Asia Minor.
[5]

A second important ethnical and political factor which decisively influenced
the outlook and geographical nomenclature of the Balkans at this time,
was the arrival of the Proto-Bulgarians, who set up their state along the
lower reaches of the Danube, as far as the Balkan Mountains to the south,
and received recognition de jure and de facto by Byzantium in A.D. 681.
After continuous raids both on their own and in alliance with Slavs and
Avars – the Proto-Bulgarians established their domiciles in two main regions.
One embraced the former provinces of Scythia Minor and Moesia, and the
other was located in central Macedonia. Led by Asparouch, they arrived
in Moesia from the northern coast of the Black Sea, after Koubrat's 'Great
Bulgaria' disintegrated c. A.D. 650. At almost the same time, the second
group, headed by Kouber, settled in the area between Thessalonica and Bitolja,
with their central settlement in Ceramea, in the midst of the land of the
Sclavinaijj tribe of the Dragouvites. This group arrived from Pannonia,
or to be more exact from the area of Sirmium (modern Sremska Mitrovitsa,
Yugoslavia), which then was included in the realm of the Avar Khaganate.
Kouber's Proto-Bulgarians being Avar dissidents, Constantinople counted
on breaking up the mass of Slavs and their alliance with the Avars, so
Byzantium welcomed them and asked its allies, the Dragouvites, to provide
food supplies. [6]

A part of the local population of the plains withdrew to the mountains,
while another, the Hellenized and Romanized elements, went to the towns
and to the territories where the Empire was still in a position to protect
them. Along with the Aegean islands, Thrace was the most significant bulwark
inland, as the latter was of vital importance for the defence of the capital
city. In the rest of fhe peninsula, the Empire had under its control only
Thessalonica (Salonica) and some of the stronger fortresses with the adjacent
strips of land along the sea coasts and the more important highways. The
power of the Emperor was only nominal in the territories occupied by the
Slavs as Sclavinian chiefs (princes) were in control there. The territory
of each tribe acquired the name 'Sclavinia' (),
obviously in accordance with the proper name of the Slavs from the south-eastern
group. The term was in common use most often by Byzantine writers in the
plural –
or in the vulgarized version ,
the Latin form being 'Sclaviniae'.

The Czech historian, Lubor Niedelie, first drew attention to the fact
that since the middle of the seventh century that name meant Macedonia.
[7]
Most of the writers interpreted the term as a designation of independent
[8] Slav principalities, which were found outside Bulgarian
territory [9] or more generally, as 'Slav land'. [10]
The oldest references (at the turn of the sixth century) [11]
to 'Sclaviniae' relate to the land, inhabited by Slavs and located along
the left bank of the Danube, i.e. their first base in present-day Wallachian
lowland.

In the chronicles of Theophanes the Confessor, [12]
dealing with events between 658 and 809-810, the 'Sclaviniae' already implied
the principalities west of the River Mesta, while in Narratio anonyma
e Codice Vaticano and in Scriptor Incertus de Leone Armenio (the excerpts
about the Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars of 811 and 814) [13]
the term has a different meaning. The first mention of 'the surrounding
Sclaviniae' ()
probably refers to the principalities near Pliska, along the western and
northern frontiers of Bulgaria (the Timokites, Moravites and principalities
to the north of the Danube) and the second mention namely, 'all Sclaviniae'
(), also refers
to those in modern Macedonia. The lack of data makes it impossible to discern
the basis of the relationship between the Bulgarian Khan Kroum and the
Slav principalities. One may assume that the relationship was based on
an alliance with the Bulgarian state, and that the Sclavinian principalities
were buffer areas between it and the Avar Khaganate. The Slavs obviously
sided with Khan Kroum in his struggle against Byzantium, but it seems that
they preserved their independence. It is in this sense that the term should
be interpreted in the name given (in the ‘List of Names of the Bulgarian
Khans') to the territory along the left bank of the Danube, Княжение
оубоу страноу Доуная. Thus, it should be the Slav-Bulgarian synonym
of the Byzantine 'Sclaviniae', and reveals the political status of independence
of the Sclavinian tribes. The latter, as we shall see later, gave their
names to the regions they occupied.

The latest mention of the 'Sclaviniae', as a collective concept, appears
in Anastasius the Librarian's Chronographia tripertita (compiled
in the second half of the ninth century). The reference in the passage
concerning events in 785, when Constantine VI conquered the Sclaviniae
of Macedonia ('Sclavenias penes Macedoniam'). We may draw the conclusion
that in this case, Macedonia implied the proper province of Antiquity.
It is mentioned for the sake of clarity, because of the very wide territorial
scope of the concept of 'Sclaviniae' at that time.

Although this term (as a collective concept, in the plural), used to
denote 'the land of the Sclavinians' disappeared from the source towards
the end of the ninth century, certain names of the separate Sclaviniae,
named after the tribes that inhabited them, proved to be more stable. They
were retained as regional toponyms for centuries. Among the few that have
been preserved in written documents and in oral tradition even to the present
day, the following, may be listed: Berzitia ()
after the Bursyatsi in Central Macedonia (the areas of Bitolja, Ochrida,
Prespa and Veles); Dragouvitia ()
after the Dragouvites to the west a south-east of Thessalonica, along the
lower reaches of the Vardar as far as Mount Olympus; Veleyezitia ()
after the Veleyezites in Thessaly and as far as Thebes; Vayonetia (,
Vayonetia) after the Vayonites in the Epirus, between Arta and Gjirokastra;
Smolenia after the Smoleni in south-eastern Macedonia, between the lower
reaches of the rivers Strouma and Mesta; Velikiya in the Western Rhodope;
Rupchos after the Ruptsi in the central Rhodope as far as Mount Strandja,
etc.

These radical ethnical and political changes in the seventh century
brought down Byzantine rule and the ancient administrative organization
in the eastern and central parts of the Balkans. They marked the end of
an epoch – Late Antiquity. The following eighth and ninth centuries constitute
the transition towards the Middle Ages in that part of the Old World. The
ancient names of the regions reflected natural conditions as did the rule
of the Empire. The new conditions already imposed the use of another geographical
nomenclature in practice, in conformity with the existing state of affairs.

Lower Moesia (Moesia Inferior) and Scythia Minor, devastated and yoid
of its old population, received the name of their new lords, Bulgaria.
Having no longer any relation with their ancient ethnical content, these
provinces rapidly lost their names. Only the Byzantine writers, who were
bent on archaization, called the Bulgarians 'Moesians' and 'Scythians',
and for them 'Moesia' was the synonym of Bulgaria. [14]
The central part of ancient Macedonia, inhabited by Kouber's Proto-Bulgarians
was also called 'Land of the Bulgarians' ()
and was the second Bulgaria in the heart of the Balkans. [15]
The other tracts of land, occupied by the Slavs outside the new Bulgarian
Empire on both sides of the Danube, were marked by the collective concepts
of 'Sclaviniae' or called after the name of the corresponding tribe.

The very use in Byzantine literature and in other documents of the new
names, Bulgaria and Sclaviniae, shows that people in the Empire fully understood
the magnitude of the radical changes that had occurred in the Balkans.
Their rulers, however, did not want to comply with these changes. That
is obvious, firstly from the numerous assaults against the Bulgarian Empire
and the Sclavinian principalities, and secondly from the basic transformations
in Byzantine military and administrative organization in the eighth and
ninth centuries. These aimed at the merger of civic and military power
for greater efficiency. The marked thinning out of the old local population
similarly led to the formation of bigger territorial units. These were
named after the army unit, known as the 'theme' and could be called up
if necessary as a militia, composed of local inhabitants and military settlers
who were established in the 'theme'. The first themes were set up in Asia
Minor to facilitate waging the wars against the Persians and the Arabs,
and later, also in the Balkans, for the campaigns against the Proto-Bulgarians
and the Sclavinians. With the appearance of the Bulgarian Khanate, the
theme of Thrace was established [16] and between 687
and 695 the theme of Hellas (in Central Greece) for action against the
Slavs. [17]

Yet, the threat to Byzantiun and to its capital city in particula was
not contained. In the struggle for the return of its rule in the Balkan
Peninsula, the Empire incessantly formed new theme segments of the chain,
which should have encircled the Bulgaria and the Slavs. Towards the year
800, to protect Constantinople, the theme Macedonia, with its centre in
Adrianople, was set up and for offensives against the Slavs, c. 805 or
807, the theme of Peloponnesus. Some time later, there appeared also the
themes of Cephalonia (composed of the Ionian Islands), Dyrrachion and Thessalonica.
[18]

The theme Macedonia included the basin of the River Maritsa and the
Rhodope area, thus restricting the territory of. the initial theme Thrace
only within the scope of its south-eastern confines, i.e. the neighbouring
hinterland of Europe on the Sea of Marmar, and the southern strip of the
Black Sea coast. [19] The newly-formed military and
administrative unit took its name from the population of the former Roman
and Early Byzantine provinces and diocece of Macedonia. The refugees, who
were driven away by the Sclavinians and who were hostile to the new settlers
in the Balkan constituted the most reliable and belligerent element in
the warfare waged by the Empire against the newcomers. The militia were
reinforced by Armenians, Syrians and other resettled peoples from the Byzantine
domains in the Near East. The settlements were grouped mainly in the plains
of the Maritsa Valley and in the long run, thanks to its numbers, the Slavonic
population that had penetrated into ancient Thrace also, took the upper
hand. It assimilated the poorer strata of the indigenous population and
of the emigrants from the East. In this respect, an important part was
also played by the dualist concept brought over from Asia, which gave rise
to the Bogomil heresy in the area of Philippople. From there it became
widespread in Bulgarian lands and Byzantium. [20]

In all probability, it was the heresies in Thrace which formed the link
and led to a united front against Constantinopolitan rule and its Church
by discontented military settlers and the Slav population, hostile to the
Empire. Only those who were directly linked to and associated with the
Byzantine rule and culture remained loyal to the Emperor and to Hellenism.

The themes of Macedonia and Thrace were of signal military and political
significance in subsequent events in the Balkans and in the coming duel
between Bulgaria and Byzantiuin for the affiliation of the Slav popular
masses. For this reason, and also to a certain extent because of ethnical
and ancient traditions, these themes imposed their names as regional ones
on the territories where they were situated. The correctness of the ethnical
explanation for the use of the mediaeval name of Macedonia for ancient
Thrace, and in general for the practice, handed down from Antiquity, of
imposing on the country the name of part of its population, is confirmed
by another example. In the ninth century, when Khan Kroum deported the
inhabitants of the theme Macedonia to his domains across the Danube, the
region where they settled was given the name Macedonia during their brief
stay there. [21]

However, the structure of the Byzantine theme did not always have the
effect of forming a new geographical nomenclature for regions (as was the
case with the setting up of the military and administrative unit of Macedonia;
there was the additional factor in this instance of migration). This is
distinctly seen in other, previously mentioned themes, as well as in those
created later (Voleron, Philippopolis, Strymon, etc.). Their names were
linked with towns or diverse geographical landnlarks, but not with the
ethnicon. An exception is the theme of Thessalonica, whose name relates
to refugees from Thessaly – Hellenized elements who took shelter in Thessalonica
and its vicinity after their homeland was taken over by Slavs. The part
of ancient Macedonia along the Aegean sea coast, held by Byzantium, acquired
the name of Thessaly. [22]

For a century and a half after its establishment along the Lower Danube,
the Bulgarian Empire succeeded in winning to its side, and incorporating
a large portion of the Sclaviniae. A major contribution was made to this
end by Byzantium itself, and in particular its reprisals against the Slavs
who rose to arms: c. 805-807 in central Greece, c. 887 against the Smoleni
and other tribes in the northern hilly areas of Thessalonica, c. 847 in
Peloponnes (Morea), etc. In spite of the fact that the uprisings were crushed
the Empire was unable to restore its old rule over the peninsula. It consolidated
only its hold on the coasts and created stron holds against the Slavs with
the newly-established themes. Between 847 and 849, during the reigns of
Khan Presiam (886 – 852) and his son Boris I, a considerable number of
the Sclavinians in ancient Macedonia acceeded voluntarily and by peaceful
means the Bulgarian state. Byzantine chroniclers have left no information
on the military activities of the Bulgarian khans against the Slavs; if
there were such activities, they would not have be overlooked.

The formation of regional nomenclature in the eastern and central parts
of the Balkans followed the general pattern of ancient traditions throughout
the Middle Ages. The name for a piece territory in a given country or province
was closely related to ethnographical origins. A typical example is Macedonia.
The political factor was also important in establishing a given name in
cases in which the name of the people was given to the militar administrative
region or land (e.g. Bulgaria, Wallachia, Thracia, Dalmatia, etc.). These
names gave meaning and touched lightly on the surrounding nationalities,
and came to have more general geographical meaning.

Names designated for administrative units, which did not follow ethnographic
traditions, were short lived, for example Paristrion, Strimon, Voleron
and others. This was noticeable throughout the period of Ottoman rule when
districts and areas were created which bore no resemblance to ethnographic
composition and urban tradition. Later, more lasting names for the particular
people of region were based on how the land was divided up (for example
Dolna and Gorna Zemia, Zagora etc.), or on ethnical and political considerations.

As a result of the almost complete isolation of the Balkan interior
from the rest of the Christian world for centuries and because of the despotic
rule of the sultan, traditional names for towns and regions remained unknown.
This isolation from West existed for a long period. Under the strong influence
of the humanists and in the Renaissance, there were a priori reasons for
the eastern and central parts of the Balkan Peninsula retaining the known
Roman provincial nomenclature. This was without reference to the actual
situation and ethnic attitudes and also did not take into account practical
application and usage in urban settlements, which had retained the traditions
of successive centuries.

It is at that time that the term 'Sclaviniae', which was of relatively
short duration, disappeared from the literature and from everyday life.
It was replaced by the name of the state, of which these principalities
became an inseparable part. The establishment of the rule of Bulgarian
khans in ancient Macedonia was only a minor reason for it receiving the
name Bulgaria. There were also the following decisive preconditions for
the change of name and its establishment.

1. Similar ethnical components in the population of the ancient
provinces of Moesia and Macedonia, namely, Slavs of the same tribal group
(Sclavinians), Proto-Bulgarians and some remnants of the old indigenous
population, who did not take refuge in Byzantium.
2. A single process, occurring simultaneously, of the formation and
consolidation of the Bulgarian nationality in the Balkans in the ninth
and tenth centuries.
3. The fact that the central part of ancient Macedonia had gained popularity
as the Land of the Bulgarians as early as the beginning of the eighth century,
after the arrival of Kouber's Proto-Bulgarians there.

It is for this reason that in his Lexicon (compiled in the twelfth
century), John Zonaras without any hesitation explains that Sclavinia is
a synonym for Bulgaria. This is so because it was obviously the homonym
of the country, in whose realm the Sclavinian tribes were included in the
first half of the ninth century.

After the new mediaeval name for Macedonia was permanently established
in ancient Thrace, Byzantine writers at the end of the ninth century, almost
without exception, applied the name Bulgaria to the ancient provinces of
Macedonia and Dardania. The ancient names of these two areas were forgotten
both by the local population and by the neighbouring peoples. The presence
of a theme of the same name in another part of the peninsula and the removal
of its ancient ethnicon to the new location played an important part in
this. [23]

The names of the individual Sclaviniae (Dragouvitia, Smolenia, Velikiya,
etc.) were similarly lost, or rnentioned only in the titles of bishops,
although those of the Sclaviniae which remained for longer outside of the
domains of the Bulgarian Empire (Vayonitiya, Veleyezitia, etc.) were preserved
longer. They were eventually replaced however by the ancient names Epirus
and Thessaly, which were reintroduced. This was after the fourteenth century,
with the return of ancient traditions under the impact of Renaissance ideas,
and in particular after the later re-identification of the local Slavs
as Greeks.

In connection with the frontiers of the Bulgarian Empire, there appeared
regional names, such as Zagore or Zagoria, having an initial meaning of
'land, situated across a mountain'. These are common names for numerous
localities in the territories, inhabited by Bulgarian Slavs, where a mountain
massif separated their state from another, or served as a frontier. [24]
Examples of this are the plains beyond the Balkan Mountains, the Rhodope,
Mount Zagrazhden and Mount Pirin. Plains in the periphery of the main areas
inhabited by the Slavs were also named Zagore, if located across large
mountain massifs, such as Pindus (in Epirus), Shar (in Kossovo Polje),
the Carpathians (in Transilvania), etc., as were small plains between a
mountain and the sea-coast, for example to the east of Pelion in Magnesin,
the Helicon Mountain in Boiotia, etc. [25]

The Bulgarians called their vast state territory, bordering on the three
seas, 'Bulgarian land' or 'Bulgaria'. With the administrative structure
of the new arrivals, the land was divided into three main parts. In accordance
with tradition, and hypsometric relationships, the land situated closer
to the seas were called 'lower', and conversely the land farthest from
the sea, 'upper' (Fig. 2). For instance, the Roman
province of Moesia Inferior opened towards the Black Sea, while the upper
province (Superior), opened towards the interior of the peninsula. To the
Bulgarians 'lower' was the land facing the warm Aegean Sea, toward which
they descended. In addition to these general definitions in accordance
with hydrographic and orographic features of the sites, a decisive part
was played by another custom, brought by the Proto-Bulgarians. To
this day among certain peoples in central Asia, the definitions 'upper'
and 'lower' are synonymous with East and West, respectively. [26]
It is only, thus, that mountainous Macedonia (both in in ancient and modern
location), contrary to hypsometrical relationships, could be called, according
to an ancient tradition, 'Lower Bulgaria' or the 'Lower Land', [27]
while the predominantly level Moesia and Thrace, was called 'Upper Bulgaria'
or 'Upper Land.'

Fig. 2. Ethnic and political changes
in the Balkans from A.D. 800-972.

In addition one may confirm the subdivision of Bulgarian land into three
parts in the Middle Ages by the List of Bulgarian Archbishops of the twelfth
century (also known to scholars as the Catalogue of Du Cange). In
it there is a report that Prince Boris I dispatched Clement of Ochrida
as a bishop of Tiberiople (modern Stroumitsa, Yugoslavia) and Velikia,
[28]
charging him to supervise also the third part of the Bulgarian Kingdom,
i.e. from Thessalonica to Herissos and Canina or Tassipiyat. [29]
Herissos is located – the Chalkidike Peninsula, and the latter, on the
coast of the Adriatic Sea. If this report uses the popular division into
'Upper' and 'Lower' land, then obviously the third part is the 'Lower land’,
called thus in other script monuments.

It is feasible to assume that the shaping of the three parts was linked
chronologically with the great expansion of the Bulgari empire. The first
was 'Upper Bulgaria', the initial territory of the state with the capital
at Pliska, and later Preslav. It incorporated Moesia with the part of Thrace
already conquered. The second part was 'Trans-Danubian Bulgaria', a large
portion of which, far as the middle reaches of the Danube, was annexed
by the khan Kroum and Omourtag early in the ninth century, after the downfall
of the Avar Khaganate and the division of its territory between Bulgaria
and the Frankish Empire. The third, greater enlargement of Bulgaria came
with the unification of the kindred population of ancient Macedonia and
the greater part of modern Albania. This took place towards the middle
of the ninth century.

It is known from I.egenda Bulgarica by Theophylakt of Ochrida
Bulgaria's Archbishop, that during the reign of Prince Boris I (852-889)
the south-eastern part of the Bulgarian Empire called Koutmichinitsa, the
Byzantine transcription of a Proto-Bulgarian word, meaning 'newly-acquired'
or 'newly-annexed’ land. In view of the rapid expansion of the Bulgarian
Empire, that name soon lost its meaning and was replaced by the names of
the main towns of the new arrivals, i.e. Devol, Stroumitsa, etc. [30]

The traditional and popu1ar division of Bulgarian lands was retained
even after mediaeval Bulgaria ceased to exist. The tradition was preserved
also in the coat of arms in its last dynasty, that of the Shishmans: three
lions, placed one above the other, as symbols of every part of Bulgaria's
domains. Subsequently, in designing the coats of arms of the three main
Bulgarian regions: Moesia or Bulgaria, Thrace and Macedonia, the three
lions were separated, each forming a basic element, in accordance with
the common practices of heraldry. Again three similar symbols – greyhounds
– also appeared in the coat of arms of Bulgaria in a heraldic inventory
of Hungary in 1766. [31]

In A.D. 1018 Bulgaria fell under Byzantine domination. With the downfall
of the First Bulgarian Empire, the barrier which checked the raids by the
Turkic peoples, such as the Patzinaks, Uses, etc. at Europe's eastern gate,
also disappeared. The military and administrative structure of Bulgaria's
territories, conquered by Byzantium, was evolved in view of the new tasks:
to make secure the north-eastern realm of the Empire. The themes of the
Danubian towns Paristrion and Sirmium were created from the two ancient
Moesias in the Upper Land. The Western part of Trans-Danubian Bulgaria
fell under the rule of the Magyars, while Byzantium held a part of the
eastern territory for a short while. Thus, in present-day Bessarabia, between
the rivers Proutul and Dnjestre, the theme Mesopotamia of the West, was
set up. It disintegrated, however, in the first decades of the eleventh
century under the blows of the invaders from the East. [32]
The Lower Land, where towards the end of its existance after the capture
of the capital city Preslav in A.D. 972, the centre of the Bulgarian state
was transferred to Ochrida, a new Byzantine theme was established with
Skopije as its centre (Fig. 3). It alone retained
the name of the conquered state – Bulgaria. The seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate,
transformed by the conqueror Basil II Bulgaroktonus into an autocephalous
Bulgarian Archbishopric, remained in Ochrid.

Fig. 3. Political changes in the Balkans,
A.D. 972-1185.

For the third time, by virtue of administrative decisions and for terminological
and political reasons, ancient Macedonia re-established its name – Bulgaria.
At that time it took a regional sense, without, however, replacing the
general name of Bulgaria, existing simultaneously with it, or the archaized
Byzantine term of Moesia, in the sense of the lands, inhabited by a Bulgarian
population. The Bulgarians, however, stuck to the division of their homeland
into the customary three parts.

There was a change with the restoration of the Bulgarian Empire in 1185.
Its centre again returned to the Upper Land, and Turnovo became the capital
city. From the viewpoint of the population of the Lower Land (i.e. ancient
Macedonia), as well as that of the Byzantine themes Macedonia and Thrace
the Upper Land was called Zagore. (Note that the regional name Zagore was
given to land which was inhabited by a homogenous population, which, however,
was separated by a mountain, serving as a frontier.) This was possible,
after its fall under Byzantine rule in 972. At that time, mountain massifs,
serving as frontier areas with the Byzantine Empire, separated it from
Bulgarian lands, with a state centre in Ochrida, which remained free and
independent until A.D. 1018. Being a shorter term, Zagore was the preferred
form and a synonym of the Upper Land or Upper Bulgaria for the inhabitants
of the Lower Land.

After Turnovo was proclaimed capital and the seat of its Archbishop
(and later Patriarch), the rulers and the head of the Bulgarian Church
acquired the name Zagorski or Zagorian. This name would have been widely
used in the spoken language, by the people and for this reason it was adopted
by the authorities as well. [33] The name Zagore, given
to the heart and centre of the Second Bulgarian Empire by the inhabitants
of the Lower Land, was taken up also by the neighbouring peoples. As early
as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was adopted by Serbians,
Italians, Byzantines, and later also by the Ottoman Turks during their
invasion of the Balkans. Thus Zagore became the synonym of Bulgaria in
general and acquired a secondary meaning. [34] In the
Late Middle Ages, the term passed into Italian cartographic images of the
Balkans and then was used in some German and other maps. [35]

The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans found regional names, well established
among the local population, which had formed as a result of ethnic changes
and the political state of affairs in the Middle Ages (Fig.
4). The name Bulgaria was retained along with that of Lower Land, Lower
Bulgaria or Lower Moesia, respectively, chiefly for the western territories,
[36]
ancient Macedonia, populated by Bulgarians. The north-eastern parts were
called Zagore or Upper Land (Upper Bulgaria),
[37] while
the basin of the River Maritsa in ancient Thrace, in accordance with the
Byzantine theme structure, was called Macedonia. Owing to the long duration
of Bulgarian rule over its northern and western parts, it was known as
Bulgarian Macedonia. [38] South-eastern Thrace (which
was the only one to retain the name of the ancient province, Thrace, thanks
to the Byzantine theme of the same name), as well as the Adrianople area
were also called Romania, because of their prolonged affliation to the
Empire. In fact, the Ottoman Turks, on reaching the Balkans, clashed with
the Byzantines and for this reason they called the territories conquered
by them, Rum-ili or Roman Land; later this was a general name for their
other European domains. It is from this term that the later west European
one, 'Rumelia', was derived. By a religious criterion that name was given
to all lands inhabited by Eastern Orthodox Christians in the central and
eastern parts of the Balkans belonging to the sultan's realm. The Ottoman
Sultan placed them under the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople, which
had abolished the Turnovo Bulgarian Patriarchate towards the end of the
fourteenth century.

Fig. 4. Names of regions and countries,
established during the Second Bulgarian Empire.

Some of the small independent states, set up after the decline of the
central power in Byzantium and in Bulgaria introduced new names to countries,
such as Wallachia, Albania, etc. The former came into being as a state
in the fourteenth century in a part of Bulgaria's territories across the
Danube, when its Second Empire was in the period of feudal dismemberment.

The rule of the sultan could not impose new names on regions and areas
by its imperial organization, and to a large degree, the latter conformed
with the territories of the separate feudal possessions, and not with the
nations inhabiting the Balkans. Fortresses, near which decisive battles
were fought during the conquest of the peninsula, were selected for centres
of the sanjaks. The fortresses lent names to the administrative unit, e.g.
Nicopolis Sanjak, in which the territories of the Turnovo Tsardome to the
north of the Balkan Mountains at its subjugation were incorporated; the
land of the Dobroudja Principality was included in the Silistra Sanjak;
the domains of Tsar John Sratsimir – in the Vidin Sanjak; those of the
Dragash despots – in the Kyustendil Sanjak, etc. [39]
As in the Middle Ages administrative units that were named after their
town-capitals, without taking into account thg ethnical composition of
the population, could not form durable toponyms. It is for this reason,
that, even after both Bulgarian and Byzantine administrative organizations
were destroyed, the traditions of mediaeval regional, geographical nomenclature
were not impaired in the concepts and consciousness of the indigenous population.

Both monuments in local script and a number of foreign observer-travellers
in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries bear testimony to the preservation
of the names of regions and areas, established during the Middle Ages.
The majority of travellers passed along the old military highway from Vienna
via Belgrade and Sofia to Constantinople. Those that had closer contact
with population report that after crossing the Rivers Morava and Nish,
they entered 'Bulgaria', and after the mountain pass 'Trajan's Gates into
'Macedonia' with its main towns Philippople and Adrianople. [40]

These local traditions of the Middle Ages, however, clashed with the
concepts in theWest concerning the names of countries and of the population
in south-eastern Europe. These concepts were formed under the influence
of Renaissance ideas, and as result of the respect held by cartographers
for the traditions of the Roman provincial structure. Also, the names of
the Roman ministrative nomenclature were not fully effaced from mediaeval
maps of the world, where the Roman provinces continued to be marked, along
with certain new facts and changes that had taken place after the downfall
of the World Empire. [41]

Christians in Western Europe had incomplete and sparse information on
the Balkan Peninsula, and on its interior regions in particular, owing
to its almost entire isolation. They believed that the descendants of Greeks,
Thracians, Dacians, Macedonians and Illyrians still lived there, but that
their religion was 'Greek', i.e. Eastern Orthodox. Thus, they continued
to call by their ancient names those inhabitants of the Balkans who were
oppressed and stereotyped under the Ottoman yoke. For people who were imbued
by humanistic ideas, these countries were veiled in mystery and were adorned
in the imagination with the beauty of Antiquity and the attractiveness
of Eastern exotics. In Western Europe, the classical geographers enjoyed
an irrefutable prestige. Thus, more modern times, the traditional Roman
geographical nomenclature was not only retained, but found fresh arguments
in Claudius Ptolemy's Cosmography. For a long time, it remained the main
source of information on the state of affairs in that part of the old World.
As a consequence, the names Thrace and Macedonia covered areas, both in
the literature and the cartography of western Europe, they had in Antiquity.
In the Balkans, there had been little progress since the second century
A.D., when they were described by the Alexandrian cartographer. [42]

'Moesia', which was not related to an ancient ethicon, was replaced
by 'Bulgaria' in the mediaeval tradition, as there was information about
the existence of such a country and people. However, only the space between
the Balkan Mountains and the Danube was left and allotted to them, after
the map had been divided into the countries of the glory-covered Macedonians
of Alexander the Great and of the Thracians of Orpheus. Thus, in the maps
of more modern times, three provinces, actually non-existent in the Ottoman
administrative structure, are formed in the central and eastern parts of
the Peninsula. In fact the inhabitants of these regions held totally different
concepts of the locations and scope covered by these names. [43]

Towards the middle of the nineteenth contury, modern geographical science
undertook a systematic study of the unknown hinterland of the Balkans.
These investigations helped in the gradual dissipation of stratified delusions
that they formed a 'Hellenic world' and a 'Greek Peninsula', both ethnically
and culturally. The discoveries, however had no effect on the widespread
use of an ancient regional nomenclature in free Europe. [44]
In spite of everything, it remained valid and unaltered. Moreover, step
by step, after relations with Western Europe and the penetration of its
civilization became brisker, the peoples, subjugated to the Sultan, began
to hear of this nomenclature and it was adopted by the indigenous population
although the mediaeval names and meanings were lost.

1. Since the reign of Emperor Aurelianus (A.D.
270 – 275) Dacia has been situated to the south of the Danube, where a
considerable part of the population of Trajan's Dacia fled after the invasion
of the Carps in A.D. 245. A similar instance of shifts of names of countries
is the case of Moesia in Asia Minor, where a part of the Thracian tribe
of the Moesians resettled from the Balkan Peninsula. As a rule, countries'
names are in a definitive relationship with those of their inhabitants
and follow their settling in domiciles.

4. For the areas of settlement of the two South-Slavonic
groups (the Serbo-Croatian and the Bulgarian) see
L. Niederle, La Race Slave. Statistique, antropologie, demographie,
Paris (1916), and especially the map supplied by him, giving the state
of settlements in the seventh to eighth centuries. The distribution of
the ethnical groups on the Balkan Peninsula is given at the time of their
establishment and the formation of Slav nationalities and the boundaries
of the spread of South-Slavonic languages are indicated there.

8. One can judge the status of Slavonic territories,
after they were reconquered by Byzantium from the report of Emperor Constantine
VII Porphyrogenit in De administrando imperio ed. by Gy. Moravcsik
and R. J. H. Jenkins, Budapest (1949 ), 50, 1-180, p .232. The Morean Sclavinians
were described as 'independent' and 'autonomous and self-ruling'.

14. For the use of the names 'Moesians' and
'Moesia', meaning 'Bulgarians' and 'Bulgaria' see Gy. Moravcsik,
Byzantinoturcica,
II, Berlin (1958), 907-908.

15.Nicephori i archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani
Opuscula Historica, ed. by C. de Boor, pp. 66, 56;
Theophani Chronographia, p. 430 etc.
The first to attract attention on that report was G. Cankova-Petkova,
'Bulgaria and Byzantium during the First Decades after the Foundation
of the Bulgarian State', Byzantinoslavica, XXIV (1), Prague (1969),
41-58.

22. In the Old-Bulgarian translation of Legenda
Ochridica by Demetrius Chomatianus, Archbishop of Ochrida, written
early in the thirteen century, 'Thessaly' is translated as the 'Thessalonica
area'. Obviously, in the minds of mediaeval Bulgarians Thessalonica was
the centre of Thessaly and not of Macedonia. The theme 'Macedonia' of that
time had its centre in Adrianople.

23. The ancient meaning of the name 'Macedonia'
was preserved only in parchment manuscripts and maps in the Middle Ages,
to reappear again from time to time as a parachronism. Only the more conservative-minded
ecclesiastic circles, and occasionally single members of the Byzantine
literary circle used it for a couple of centuries after the setting up
of the themr 'Macedonia' in Thrace. These are mostly cases when they were
forced to use the term at times of ultimate danger for their homeland,
Byzantium, in order to produce arguments in support of their claims on
ancient Macedonia and to draw on its grandeur and might. They took the
ancient Kingdom from oblivion with the aim of stimulating the patriotic
feelings of the population of the Empire, but even in such cases, the name
'Macedonia' had only a regional and geographic content, and not an ethnic
one.

Many of these writers, when they archaize, deem it necessary to explain
what they have in mind, namely the ancient Macedonia, and not the contemporary
one. This is the case for instance with Anastasius the Librarian (in Vita
Hadriani II, 636), and Theophylact of Ochrid, Archbishop of Bulgaria
(in the Vita of the Tiberiople martyrs – J. P. Migne, PGr, Vol.
126, col. 151). The theme 'Macedonia' imposed its name to such a degree
on Byzantine everyday life that, in certain cases, it became the cause
for retrospective actualization: in its mediaeval scope and location the
name 'Macedonia' was transposed to the events that took place prior to
the formation of the theme, and in fact in the'confines of Thrace in Antiquity.

26. Thus, for instance, in the Turkmenian language
the word ‘okari’ denotes, 'East', i.e. the point where the sun rises, and
'oshag' denotes 'West', i.e., where the sun sets. See Е. М. Мурзаев,
‘Основные направления топономастических исследований’ in Принципы
топонимики, Москва (1964), p. 81.
Even today in Bulgarian dialects the East Wind is called Gornyak i.e.
coming from the Upper Land (Gorna zemya), while the West Wind is the opposite,
‘Dolnyak’, coming from the Lower Land (Dolna zemya).

27. It is found, for instance, in the deed
of King Constantine Asen (1251-1277), granted to the monastery of Virginsko
Burdo near Skopije, in the Old-Bulgarian translation of Manasses' Chronicle
and other Bulgarian documents of the Middle Ages.